Welcome to Better Know a Guest, your weekly guide to the wonderful and diverse array of personalities appearing on ‘The Colbert Report’ and ‘The Daily Show’ each week.
Hey there Hubsters! After a busy two weeks (finals, y’know), I’m back to the weekly BKAG! Shoutout to Katt and the Hub Staff for covering for me! On the topic of fake news, is there anything that’s happened over the weekend that you hope Jon or Stephen will cover? As usual, let us know in the comments below!
Stephen’s guests this week are an author, a band, an actress, and a correspondent for a documentary series.
Jon’s guests this week are a doctor, a journalist, a band, and an actor.
Monday, May 12 (2014)
Glenn Greenwald (Author: “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State”)
Glenn Greenwald is an American political journalist, lawyer, blogger, and author, whose latest book, No Place to Hide details the events surrounding the information released by Edward Snowden and the problems that accompany invasive government spying. Greenwald also shares his personal experience with Snowden, as he was the journalist with whom the NSA contractor first spoke about his discoveries. The book also draws on Greenwald’s research on surveillance while writing on the topic for The Guardian.
Born: 6 March 1967 (New York City, New York, United States)
Education: George Washington University | New York University School of Law
Books: With Libert and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful | A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency | How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From a President Run Amok
Awards: George Polk Award | EFF Pioneer Award | Online Journalism Award | Izzy Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): “Corporate Hacker Tries to Take Down Wikileaks”
Follow: @GGreenwald
Tuesday, May 13 (2014)
The Black Keys (Album: “Turn Blue”)
The Black Keys are an American rock band originally from Akron, Ohio, comprised of Dan Auerbach (guitar and vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). Their newest (and eighth) studio album is Turn Blue, which includes their latest single, “Fever”. To be released on May 12, 2014, the album has already received praise from critics, with David Fricke of The Rolling Stone calling it the ‘best, most consistently gripping album the Keys have ever made,’ while Andy Gill of The Independent wrote that it ‘employs much the same formula of catchy, hook-laden melodies harnessed to tank-tread riffs that made its predecessor so irresistible.’
Discography: The Big Come Up | Thickfreakness | Rubber Factory | Magic Potion | Attack & Release | Brothers | El Camino | Turn Blue
Awards: Grammy Award | MTV Video Music Award | BRIT Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interview – 7 December 2011
Follow: Website | @TheBlackKeys
Wednesday, May 14 (2014)
Keri Russell (Actress: “The Americans”)
Keri Russell is an American actress who stars in the FX series The Americans. The show is set in the 1980s during the Cold War, and follows the lives of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) two KGB spies living undercover as an American married couple in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., who live next door to Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), an FBI counterintelligence agent. The series focuses on their personal and professional lives while including some real-life events. The first and second seasons of the show premiered to critical acclaim, with the American Film Institute listing it as one of top ten shows of 2013 and Entertainment Weekly describing it as “an absorbing spy thriller.”
Born: 23 March 1976 (Fountain Valley, California, United States)
Filmography: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid | Eight Days a Week | The Curve | We Were Soldiers | Mission: Impossible III | Waitress | August Rush | Bedtime Stories | Austenland
Television: Clerks. | Daddy’s Girls | Malibu Shores | The Lottery | Felicity | Running Wilde
Awards: Golden Globe Award | Teen Choice Award | Camie Award
Thursday, May 15 (2014)
Thomas Friedman (Correspondent: “Years of Living Dangerously”)
Thomas Friedman is an American journalist, columnist, and author who appears as a correspondent in the Showtime documentary series Years of Living Dangerously. The series examines the issues surrounding global climate change, and is produced by James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Daniel Abbasi. Weekly episodes follow celebrity investigators as they travel around the world to areas affected by global warming and interview experts as well as the ordinary people that deal with issues caused by the phenomenon. Celebrities slated to appear include Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, Jessica Alba, Don Cheadle, America Ferrera, Lesley Stahl, Ian Somerhalder, Olivia Munn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The series has thus far received critical acclaim, hailed for being “simple and clear without being arrogant” (The Hollywood Reporter) and a “lavish, gripping production focused on the real effect of climate change in real people’s lives around the world” (The Globe and Mail).
Born: 20 July 1953 (St. Louis Park, Minnesota, United States)
Education: St. Louis Park High School | Brandeis University | St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford
Works: From Beirut to Jerusalem | The Lexus and the Olive Tree | Longitudes and Attitudes | The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century | Hot, Flat, and Crowded | The Used to Be US: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
Awards: Pulitzer Prize
Follow: Website | @TomFriedman
And now, let’s check in with our good friend Jon Stewart over at ‘The Daily Show’!
Monday, May 12 (2014)
Dr. Martin Blaser (Author: ” Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues”)
Dr. Martin Blaser is the Muriel G. and George W. Singer Professor of Translational Medicine and the Director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. His new book, Missing Microbes, examines the problems that the overuse of antibiotics cause, including the destruction of microbes that are naturally present in the human body, and which are essential to healthy function of organ systems. The Wall Street Journal praised it as a rational book on medical concerns: “Unlike some books on medicine and microbes, Dr. Blaser’s doesn’t stir up fears of exotic diseases or pandemic ‘superbugs’ resistant to all known drugs. He focuses on a simpler but more profound concern: the damage that modern life inflicts on the vast number of microbes that all of us, even healthy people, carry inside us at all time.”
Education: University of Pennsylvania | New York University School of Medicine | University of Colorado School of Medicine
Tuesday, May 13 (2014)
Ron Suskind (Author: ” Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism”)
Ron Suskind is an American author and journalist, whose latest book is Life, Animated: a Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism. It tells the tale of Suskind’s own son, Owen, who has autism, and did not speak for years, instead creating a language from the dialogues of animated Disney movies. Suskind and his family had to adapt to the language in order to communicate with Owen, and in a way became animated characters themselves through dialogue and song like that found in Disney movies. Suskind hopes to show an interesting side of austism, as well as the importance of stories.
Born: 20 November 1959 (Kingston, New York, United States)
Education: University of Virginia | Columbia University
Books: A Hope in the Unseen | The Price of Loyalty | The One Percent Doctrine | The Way of the World | Confidence Men
Awards: Pulitzer Prize
Previous ‘Daily Show’ Appearance(s): Interview – 21 September 2011 | 12 August 2008
Wednesday, May 14 (2014)
Blondie (Album: “Blondie 4(0)-Ever: Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux / Ghosts of Download”)
Blondie is an American rock band whose members include Debbie Harry (lead vocals), Chris Stein (guitar, bass), Clem Burke (drums, percussion, backing vocals), Leigh Foxx (bass), Matt Katz-Bohen (keyboards, piano, organ), and Tommy Kessler (guitar). In celebration of the 40th year since the legendary bands inception into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Blondie are marking the occasion the special release of “Greatest Hits: Deluxe Redux / Ghosts of Download”, a unique 2-disc album that salutes both their past and present. “Greatest Hits: Deluxe Redux” features a collection of their very best music, revisted and re-recorded by the band, while “Ghosts of Download” is a collection of brand new music, featuring some of the world’s most unique artists, including Beth Ditto, Miss Guy, and Systema Solar.
Discography: Blondie | Plastic Letters | Parallel Lines | Eat to the Beat | Autoamerican | The Hunter | No Exit | The Curse of Blondie | Panic of Girls | Ghosts of Download
Awards: Juno Award | Grammy Award | Q Music Award | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | NME Award
Follow: Website |@BlondieOfficial
Thursday, May 15 (2014)
Jim Parsons (Actor: “The Normal Heart”)
Jim Parsons is an American actor, most famous for playing the character Sheldon Cooper on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He will next star in the HBO adaptation of the play The Normal Heart, which follows the the life of Larry Kramer during the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City from 1981-1984 through the eyes of gay rights activist Ned Weeks. He prefers a bolder, brasher approach to activism, as opposed to the calmer approaches favored by his colleagues and closeted lover Felix Turner, a difference in opinion that leads to conflicts that threaten to undermine the group’s goals.
Born: 24 March 1973 (Houston, Texas, United States)
Education: Klein Oak High School | University of Houston
Filmography: Happy End | Garden State | Heights | The Great New Wonderful | The King’s Inn | 10 Items or Less | School for Scoundrels | On the Road with Judas | Gardener of Eden | The Big Year | The Muppets | Sunset Stories | Home | Wish I Was Here
Television: Judging Amy | The Big Bang Theory
Awards: TCA Awards | Emmy Award | Critic’s Choice Television Award | Golden Globe Award
Please remember to vote in our weekly favourite guests polls, and don’t forget to let us know which guests you’re looking forward to! Also please try to comment with any tips or suggestions that you have for this post. Thanks! Here’s to a great week of shows! That’s all for this week Hubsters! See you next time!
Better Know a Guest: May 12 – 15, 2014
Welcome to Better Know a Guest, your weekly guide to the wonderful and diverse array of personalities appearing on ‘The Colbert Report’ and ‘The Daily Show’ each week.
Hey there Hubsters! After a busy two weeks (finals, y’know), I’m back to the weekly BKAG! Shoutout to Katt and the Hub Staff for covering for me! On the topic of fake news, is there anything that’s happened over the weekend that you hope Jon or Stephen will cover? As usual, let us know in the comments below!
Stephen’s guests this week are an author, a band, an actress, and a correspondent for a documentary series.
Jon’s guests this week are a doctor, a journalist, a band, and an actor.
Monday, May 12 (2014)
Glenn Greenwald (Author: “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State”)
Glenn Greenwald is an American political journalist, lawyer, blogger, and author, whose latest book, No Place to Hide details the events surrounding the information released by Edward Snowden and the problems that accompany invasive government spying. Greenwald also shares his personal experience with Snowden, as he was the journalist with whom the NSA contractor first spoke about his discoveries. The book also draws on Greenwald’s research on surveillance while writing on the topic for The Guardian.
Born: 6 March 1967 (New York City, New York, United States)
Education: George Washington University | New York University School of Law
Books: With Libert and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful | A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency | How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From a President Run Amok
Awards: George Polk Award | EFF Pioneer Award | Online Journalism Award | Izzy Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): “Corporate Hacker Tries to Take Down Wikileaks”
Follow: @GGreenwald
Tuesday, May 13 (2014)
The Black Keys (Album: “Turn Blue”)
The Black Keys are an American rock band originally from Akron, Ohio, comprised of Dan Auerbach (guitar and vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). Their newest (and eighth) studio album is Turn Blue, which includes their latest single, “Fever”. To be released on May 12, 2014, the album has already received praise from critics, with David Fricke of The Rolling Stone calling it the ‘best, most consistently gripping album the Keys have ever made,’ while Andy Gill of The Independent wrote that it ‘employs much the same formula of catchy, hook-laden melodies harnessed to tank-tread riffs that made its predecessor so irresistible.’
Discography: The Big Come Up | Thickfreakness | Rubber Factory | Magic Potion | Attack & Release | Brothers | El Camino | Turn Blue
Awards: Grammy Award | MTV Video Music Award | BRIT Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interview – 7 December 2011
Follow: Website | @TheBlackKeys
Wednesday, May 14 (2014)
Keri Russell (Actress: “The Americans”)
Keri Russell is an American actress who stars in the FX series The Americans. The show is set in the 1980s during the Cold War, and follows the lives of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) two KGB spies living undercover as an American married couple in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., who live next door to Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), an FBI counterintelligence agent. The series focuses on their personal and professional lives while including some real-life events. The first and second seasons of the show premiered to critical acclaim, with the American Film Institute listing it as one of top ten shows of 2013 and Entertainment Weekly describing it as “an absorbing spy thriller.”
Born: 23 March 1976 (Fountain Valley, California, United States)
Filmography: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid | Eight Days a Week | The Curve | We Were Soldiers | Mission: Impossible III | Waitress | August Rush | Bedtime Stories | Austenland
Television: Clerks. | Daddy’s Girls | Malibu Shores | The Lottery | Felicity | Running Wilde
Awards: Golden Globe Award | Teen Choice Award | Camie Award
Thursday, May 15 (2014)
Thomas Friedman (Correspondent: “Years of Living Dangerously”)
Thomas Friedman is an American journalist, columnist, and author who appears as a correspondent in the Showtime documentary series Years of Living Dangerously. The series examines the issues surrounding global climate change, and is produced by James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Daniel Abbasi. Weekly episodes follow celebrity investigators as they travel around the world to areas affected by global warming and interview experts as well as the ordinary people that deal with issues caused by the phenomenon. Celebrities slated to appear include Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, Jessica Alba, Don Cheadle, America Ferrera, Lesley Stahl, Ian Somerhalder, Olivia Munn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The series has thus far received critical acclaim, hailed for being “simple and clear without being arrogant” (The Hollywood Reporter) and a “lavish, gripping production focused on the real effect of climate change in real people’s lives around the world” (The Globe and Mail).
Born: 20 July 1953 (St. Louis Park, Minnesota, United States)
Education: St. Louis Park High School | Brandeis University | St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford
Works: From Beirut to Jerusalem | The Lexus and the Olive Tree | Longitudes and Attitudes | The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century | Hot, Flat, and Crowded | The Used to Be US: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
Awards: Pulitzer Prize
Follow: Website | @TomFriedman
And now, let’s check in with our good friend Jon Stewart over at ‘The Daily Show’!
Monday, May 12 (2014)
Dr. Martin Blaser (Author: ” Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues”)
Dr. Martin Blaser is the Muriel G. and George W. Singer Professor of Translational Medicine and the Director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. His new book, Missing Microbes, examines the problems that the overuse of antibiotics cause, including the destruction of microbes that are naturally present in the human body, and which are essential to healthy function of organ systems. The Wall Street Journal praised it as a rational book on medical concerns: “Unlike some books on medicine and microbes, Dr. Blaser’s doesn’t stir up fears of exotic diseases or pandemic ‘superbugs’ resistant to all known drugs. He focuses on a simpler but more profound concern: the damage that modern life inflicts on the vast number of microbes that all of us, even healthy people, carry inside us at all time.”
Education: University of Pennsylvania | New York University School of Medicine | University of Colorado School of Medicine
Tuesday, May 13 (2014)
Ron Suskind (Author: ” Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism”)
Ron Suskind is an American author and journalist, whose latest book is Life, Animated: a Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism. It tells the tale of Suskind’s own son, Owen, who has autism, and did not speak for years, instead creating a language from the dialogues of animated Disney movies. Suskind and his family had to adapt to the language in order to communicate with Owen, and in a way became animated characters themselves through dialogue and song like that found in Disney movies. Suskind hopes to show an interesting side of austism, as well as the importance of stories.
Born: 20 November 1959 (Kingston, New York, United States)
Education: University of Virginia | Columbia University
Books: A Hope in the Unseen | The Price of Loyalty | The One Percent Doctrine | The Way of the World | Confidence Men
Awards: Pulitzer Prize
Previous ‘Daily Show’ Appearance(s): Interview – 21 September 2011 | 12 August 2008
Wednesday, May 14 (2014)
Blondie (Album: “Blondie 4(0)-Ever: Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux / Ghosts of Download”)
Blondie is an American rock band whose members include Debbie Harry (lead vocals), Chris Stein (guitar, bass), Clem Burke (drums, percussion, backing vocals), Leigh Foxx (bass), Matt Katz-Bohen (keyboards, piano, organ), and Tommy Kessler (guitar). In celebration of the 40th year since the legendary bands inception into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Blondie are marking the occasion the special release of “Greatest Hits: Deluxe Redux / Ghosts of Download”, a unique 2-disc album that salutes both their past and present. “Greatest Hits: Deluxe Redux” features a collection of their very best music, revisted and re-recorded by the band, while “Ghosts of Download” is a collection of brand new music, featuring some of the world’s most unique artists, including Beth Ditto, Miss Guy, and Systema Solar.
Discography: Blondie | Plastic Letters | Parallel Lines | Eat to the Beat | Autoamerican | The Hunter | No Exit | The Curse of Blondie | Panic of Girls | Ghosts of Download
Awards: Juno Award | Grammy Award | Q Music Award | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | NME Award
Follow: Website |@BlondieOfficial
Thursday, May 15 (2014)
Jim Parsons (Actor: “The Normal Heart”)
Jim Parsons is an American actor, most famous for playing the character Sheldon Cooper on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He will next star in the HBO adaptation of the play The Normal Heart, which follows the the life of Larry Kramer during the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City from 1981-1984 through the eyes of gay rights activist Ned Weeks. He prefers a bolder, brasher approach to activism, as opposed to the calmer approaches favored by his colleagues and closeted lover Felix Turner, a difference in opinion that leads to conflicts that threaten to undermine the group’s goals.
Born: 24 March 1973 (Houston, Texas, United States)
Education: Klein Oak High School | University of Houston
Filmography: Happy End | Garden State | Heights | The Great New Wonderful | The King’s Inn | 10 Items or Less | School for Scoundrels | On the Road with Judas | Gardener of Eden | The Big Year | The Muppets | Sunset Stories | Home | Wish I Was Here
Television: Judging Amy | The Big Bang Theory
Awards: TCA Awards | Emmy Award | Critic’s Choice Television Award | Golden Globe Award
Please remember to vote in our weekly favourite guests polls, and don’t forget to let us know which guests you’re looking forward to! Also please try to comment with any tips or suggestions that you have for this post. Thanks! Here’s to a great week of shows! That’s all for this week Hubsters! See you next time!